Amazon unveiled dramatic growth figures for its AI shopping assistant Rufus during its third-quarter 2025 earnings call. CEO Andy Jassy shared that Rufus is now responsible for $10 billion in annualized sales, underscoring the company’s deep commitment to artificial intelligence as a pillar of modern retail strategy.
This disclosure comes as Amazon surpassed revenue expectations with third-quarter sales reaching $180.2 billion.
The milestone solidifies AI’s transformative role in the company’s customer engagement, sales conversions, and ongoing competition with key technology rivals.
What Is Amazon's AI Shopping Assistant Rufus?
Rufus is Amazon’s AI-powered shopping assistant, integrated into both its website and mobile app for a seamless customer experience. Launched in beta in February 2024, Rufus uses natural language understanding to guide shoppers throughout their buying journey, delivering recommendations, answering product-specific questions, and helping with broad comparisons, all without users leaving the Amazon ecosystem.
The chatbot is designed to reduce friction during shopping, making it easier for customers to find suitable products and gain confidence in their choices.
These capabilities have quickly been adopted by millions, with Rufus now recognized as a cornerstone of the company's digital commerce interface.
Did you know?
Amazon’s AI assistant Rufus is named after Rufus, a real corgi that once belonged to Amazon employees and was a familiar mascot at the company’s Seattle campus.
How Has Rufus Driven $10 Billion in Sales?
Rufus generated over $10 billion in incremental annualized sales, according to Andy Jassy’s statements during Amazon’s latest earnings report.
This figure is linked with a surge in customers’ engagement metrics: an estimated 250 million shoppers have interacted with Rufus in 2025, while monthly active users have jumped by 140 percent year-over-year.
Engagement isn’t just about volume; conversion rates tell the fuller story. Amazon reports that customers who use Rufus are 60 percent more likely to complete a purchase than those who do not.
The assistant’s new features, such as “Help Me Decide,” personalize recommendations based on search history, browsing habits, and prior purchases.
Why Are Competitors Racing to Match Rufus?
Amazon’s runaway success with Rufus has drawn the attention of rivals striving to match its technological prowess. Walmart has partnered with OpenAI, integrating ChatGPT to enable conversational shopping, while TikTok Shop is rapidly gaining traction by blending short-form video with in-app purchases.
These developments represent an intensifying contest in AI-driven commerce, with major platforms working to captivate user attention and optimize every step of the online shopping journey. The competitive pressure is already shaping strategy across the industry.
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What Infrastructure Supports Amazon’s AI Push?
To deliver on its AI ambitions, Amazon is investing heavily in infrastructure. The company lifted its 2025 capital expenditure forecast to $125 billion, with an emphasis on expanding data centers and acquiring advanced computing resources.
This funding supports both retail and Amazon Web Services (AWS), the latter of which reported $33 billion in third-quarter revenue, marking its fastest growth rate since 2022.
These investments strengthen both the scalability and complexity of AI initiatives like Rufus, ensuring Amazon stays ahead in the race for smarter, more personal retail experiences.
Effective infrastructure has become a key competitive differentiator in supporting world-scale AI applications.
What’s Next for Rufus and AI in E-Commerce?
Amazon is not resting on its laurels. Continued innovation around Rufus points to more advanced personalization, faster response times, and broader integration of voice and image recognition.
As AI evolves, expect the line between digital assistant and virtual salesperson to blur, changing how consumers interact with retail platforms.
Jassy’s disclosure about Rufus signals not only current success but also Amazon’s intent to redefine shopping through AI.
With rivals investing in similar technologies, the next phase of e-commerce will likely be shaped by advancements in customer data, conversational AI, and seamless digital experiences that were once only imagined.
Amazon’s rapid adoption of AI paves the way for a retail landscape where smart assistants become the first and most important interaction for millions of shoppers worldwide.
The pace of innovation and user adoption indicates that retail is on the cusp of a digital transformation not seen in decades.
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